(Elemental Assassin 01) Spider's Bite (20 page)

“Clean,” I said.

Finn shivered and put his key in the lock. “You know how creepy that is, right? You listening to a pile of rocks? It’s just not natural.”

“What’s not natural is the fact you spend more on hair-care products than I do,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. I reached over and rubbed his head, messing up his walnut locks.

“Hey! Hey!” Finn protested. “Anything but the hair.”

I almost managed a grin.

We stepped inside. Finn settled himself at the kitchen table and fired up his laptop. He clicked through his various e-mail accounts and messages, seeing what his sources had been able to dig up on Gordon Giles and anyone who might have wanted him dead.

“Here.” I reached into my hip pocket and passed him the business card I’d gotten from the coeds outside the Cake Walk. “See what you can find out about this guy, too. Who is he, where he works, where he hangs out at.”

Finn waved the card at me. “Do you really think this will lead us anywhere? The IDs we got off the other men were all fakes.”

I shrugged. “Dumbass was stupid enough to hand it out to those coeds while he was tailing a guy. I bet he was stupid enough to give them one with his real name on it. If we strike out with Donovan Caine, we can always go pay Mr. Smooth a visit. Worth a shot.”

While Finn tested the silky threads of his information web, I moved into the kitchen.

“On to more important matters—any special requests for lunch?”

“Sandwich,” Finn murmured, never taking his eyes off the flickering screen. “You make the best sandwiches.”

Truer words had never been spoken. I opened the refrigerator and scanned the sandwich fixings inside. Five minutes later, I had two turkey-and-Gouda sandwiches on chewy pumpernickel bread. I added a kosher pickle and a couple of baby carrots to each plate, along with some double chocolate chip cookies. Color and presentation were key when it came to food preparation. At least, that’s what my culinary professor had claimed last semester, when he’d showed us how to turn tomatoes into roses with our paring knives. I’d aced that final.

I put a plate in front of Finn and took the chair on the other side of the table.

“Anything on Mr. Smooth yet?” I asked.

Finn gnawed off a bite of his sandwich. “Working on it. You were right. Dumbass was stupid enough to give you his real name, which is Carlyle, by the way. Charles Carlyle, although his friends probably call him Chuck. Guess where he works?”

I didn’t even have to think about it. “Halo Industries.”

Finn shot his finger at me. “Bingo. He’s an executive vice president.”

I frowned. Carlyle hadn’t struck me as a true corporate type. More like a bouncer dressed up in a suit. “Executive vice president? That’s a nice way of saying he’s someone’s corporate bitch.”

Finn kept his green eyes on his computer. “Haley James’s corporate bitch. Looks like he reports directly to her. A new hire. Just started a couple months ago.”

Haley James’s name kept popping up everywhere we looked. Not enough to prove her guilty of being the Air elemental or behind the hit on Giles, but definitely enough to make her a person of serious interest.

“I’ll put out more requests for info on Carlyle,” Finn promised. “By tonight, I should have a record of everything he’s ever done.”

“Good,” I said. “What about the tooth necklace? Any leads?”

“The rune? Nothing so far. It’s not used by anyone I or my considerable friends know. I’ve put out more feelers to my contacts. Maybe something will turn up.”

I frowned again. Runes were important, especially to magic users. They transmitted information, showed allegiances, inspired awe—and fear. Hell, I hated the damn things, but I still had three of them on my mantel. And two more on my palms, whether I wanted them there or not.

A tooth represented prosperity. Power. Using that as your symbol meant you were trying to send a message you were strong. Someone to be reckoned with. If we found who used the rune, we’d find who had set this whole thing up. Or at least some of her underlings. I had no qualms about killing my way up the food chain until I got to the Air elemental herself. Charles Carlyle would be as good a guy as any to start with.

“What about Caine? Think he’ll take you up on your offer to trade information?” Finn crunched a carrot between his teeth.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. It depends on what he wants more—me dead for killing his partner or to find out who really murdered Giles and which one of his fellow esteemed boys in blue is helping her. My money’s on the second one. Caine already thinks I’m a monster. He’ll want to go after the other two—the ones he doesn’t know.”

Finn glanced at his watch. “It’s almost three. He’s only got a few hours to make up his mind.”

“I know. And I hope he makes the right decision. For everyone’s sake.”

Finn snorted. “You’re just saying that because you want to fuck him.”

I started. “What makes you say that?”

“Come on, Gin, don’t play games with me. You’ve got a thing for Donovan Caine. You have ever since you killed Ingles, his partner, and he went all dogged and determined on you. Fletcher told me about the file he compiled on the good detective.”

My fingers smushed into my sandwich, leaving grooves in the pumpernickel bread. Damn Fletcher. Damn and double damn him. That file was just supposed to be between the two of us. But I should have known he would have told Finn about it. The old man had shared everything with his son—including my curious interest in the detective.

Maybe it was his dark good looks or the air of confidence that radiated off Donovan Caine. Maybe it was the perpetual scowl that tightened his face. Or the strain of being an honest man that sat on his shoulders like he was Atlas bearing the weight of the world. Or perhaps it was the simple fact he still clung to ideals I’d given up long ago. But something about him fascinated me.

“Maybe I find him … interesting,” I admitted. “Attractive in an uptight sort of way. But that won’t keep me from killing him if he does something stupid—like try to double-cross us. That is something that’s nonnegotiable, no matter how much fuck potential Donovan Caine might have.”

Finn raised his coffee mug to me. “That’s my girl. A bitch to the bitter end.”

I saluted him with my sandwich. “Always.” 

14

“Exactly how long are we going to sit out here?” Finn asked. “It’s been
hours
already.”

Finnegan Lane might be an expert when it came to computers, international banking laws, and getting women to take off their clothes, but patience was not one of his virtues. Another reason Fletcher had trained me instead of him. Assassins who didn’t like to wait did stupid things—and then they got dead.

“Long enough for him to think we’re not coming tonight and relax his guard,” I said. “Now quit your bitching. You whine worse than a toddler.”

I peered through a pair of night-vision goggles. Donovan Caine lived in a modest cabin home in Towering Pines, one of Ashland’s rustic-themed subdivisions. The two-story, wooden structure was located at the end of a cul-de-sac and squatted about two hundred feet up on a hill. Stunted pine trees lined the curving driveway that led up to the house, not quite matching the subdivision’s boastful name.

Finn and I had gotten a fresh car and slipped into the suburban neighborhood just before six. Lucky for us, one of Caine’s college-age neighbors had decided to throw a raucous party. Two dozen cars lined the streets, three deep in some places, while at least a hundred people, most in their early twenties, milled in and around the ranch-style house that was the closest one to the detective’s abode. One particularly drunk frat boy had stumbled by, turned, and thrown up all over the hood of our stolen SUV. I had to stop Finn from getting out and rubbing the guy’s nose in his own vomit.

“It’s not even your car,” I pointed out. “You lifted it out of a mall parking lot.”

“It’s the principle of the thing,” Finn sniffed. “This is a Mercedes. You don’t puke on a Mercedes.”

We sat about two hundred feet away from the cabin, out of range of any surveillance cameras or equipment that might be on or around the structure. Besides the party shack, there hadn’t been much activity on the street. A few folks coming in from work and going back out to get dinner. Some kids wearing football uniforms piling out of a truck. People lugging groceries inside. The usual suburban routines.

At exactly six o’clock, the light on Donovan Caine’s front porch had clicked on. The detective appeared to have accepted my terms. Or at least wanted me to think he had. I hadn’t spotted any scurry of activity around the house. No cops hidden in the bushes, no plainclothes detectives masquerading as put-upon suburbanites, no SWAT team parked in an unmarked van. But that didn’t mean Caine wasn’t waiting inside with a dozen of Ashland’s most corrupt.

After the light had appeared, Finn and I had driven out of the subdivision. We’d killed time by eating some spicy fajitas, salty corn chips, and chunky salsa at Pepe’s, one of the local Mexican restaurants. We’d returned just after eight and had spent the last three hours watching Caine’s house.

“I still can’t believe he turned on his porch light,” Finn said, shifting in the driver’s seat. “He must be as crazy and desperate as we are.”

“Or he knows there’s more to this than meets the eye and wants to get to the bottom of it,” I replied.

“You know you could be walking into a trap. Caine could be waiting in there with a shotgun, ready to blast you to hell and back.”

“He could, but I don’t think he will,” I said. “By turning on that light, he gave me his word. That means something to a man like Donovan Caine.”

Finn snorted. “Yeah, it means you’ll realize he’s an exceptionally good liar when you’re clutching your intestines and choking on your own blood on his living room floor.”

I leaned forward and stared through the goggles at the house. It was after eleven now, and day had long ago given way to night. Darkness would have shrouded the street, covered in a blanket of silence, if every single light over at Party Central hadn’t been turned on and cranked up full blast, along with an impressive sound system. Somebody over there was on a Lynyrd Skynyrd kick. They’d played “Sweet Home, Alabama” so many times I wanted to crash the party, kill the radio, and knife whoever was selecting the music.

But the blaring southern rock, warm glow, and beer buzz didn’t reach up the hill to Caine’s place. Shadows pooled around the cabin like puddles of ever-expanding blood, encroaching on the cheer from the party.

A light snapped on in one of the second-story windows, and a tall, lean figure moved in front of it. Donovan Caine. I adjusted the goggles, but I couldn’t make out his features through the thick curtains. He appeared agitated, pacing from one side of the room to the other. His hand was held to his head, as though he was talking on a cell phone. He seemed to be arguing with someone.

A pair of headlights popped up in the rearview mirror, ruining my night vision. Cursing, I blinked away the spots that exploded in my eyes. But instead of stopping at Party Central and spewing out more college kids, the black sedan glided by. Its headlights snapped off, and the vehicle coasted to a stop at the end of the cul-de-sac, blocking the entrance to Caine’s driveway.

“What do you see?” Finn whispered.

I blinked away the rest of the spots and squinted through the goggles. “Five men. Suits. All armed with guns. All headed toward the house. Four going up to the front. One headed around the back of the cabin.”

“Fuck.”

“Fuck is right,” I muttered, pulling off the goggles. “There’s only one reason you send five guys to a cop’s house in the middle of the night.”

The same scenario had played out when my family had been murdered. The sneak attack late at night. The old memories tugged at me, the hoarse screams echoed in my ears, but I blocked them out. Now was not the time to dwell on the past.

“Somebody’s decided the good detective is more of a liability than an asset,” Finn finished my thought. “He’s probably been asking too many questions about the Giles murder.”

“Justice will get you every single time. Now, you take the rear guard and keep him from coming up behind me. I’ll surprise the others.”